


Shadow of Icarus

by voleuse



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-09
Updated: 2005-10-09
Packaged: 2017-10-04 10:00:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voleuse/pseuds/voleuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>It's too early yet for the stars to grace us with a sacrificial dance</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shadow of Icarus

**Author's Note:**

> Set during a War, no spoilers. Title and summary adapted from Beth Bachmann's _First Dance Epithalamion_.

He finds Hermione upstairs, sitting cross-legged in front of the hearth.

The firelight paints her face in flickers of orange and shadow, and her robe pools around her. He stands outside the doorway and watches her.

"Harry." She doesn't turn to look at him, but she tilts her head and almost smiles.

He takes an uncertain step inside, and a ward shatters against his skin. "Hermione?"

"It's nothing." She brushes her robes, redrapes them around her knees. "Just..."

"Yes," he says. "I know."

He washed the blood off his hands hours ago, but he thinks he can still feel it underneath his fingernails.

"Are you going to come down for dinner?" he asks.

"Maybe," she says. "Maybe."

He retreats, and wishes she had looked him in the eye.

*

 

Hermione doesn't eat that night.

Harry knows, because he waited in the kitchen until dawn.

*

 

The next evening, when he returns to the house, the others greet him with worried faces and whispered news.

He climbs the stairs, each footstep a hesitant tap against the wood.

Hermione is still there, still watching the flames dance. There are new logs in the fireplace, but otherwise, nothing has changed.

The ward is up again; he feels it a second before he steps through.

Again, she doesn't look at him. He kneels across from her and waits.

"Harry," she says, and her voice is scratchy and low.

"Hermione," he answers.

They wait, but nothing happens.

Just as he expected.

*

 

"Has she gone mad?" someone asks him.

"No," Harry replies.

"How long will she stay up there?"

A long pause.

"I don't know."

*

 

He brings her a mug of cider, a plate of biscuits.

The ward tonight is brittle, he can almost hear it break.

He kneels again, but closer. Sets the plate and mug in front of her like an offering.

Several minutes pass, but she finally takes the cup and drinks.

Harry sighs, settles on his heels.

"Hermione," he says.

The flames are tall, golden.

"You can't live up here," he says.

She sets the mug down. "I used to drink cider in front of the fireplace. At home."

"I never did," Harry says. "I'd be lucky if I got hot water."

"My parents would put a record on, sometimes."

A log snaps. A bit of ash lands on the back of Harry's hand.

Hermione picks up a biscuit, breaks it in half, then again. And again, until it crumbles in her fingers.

"Hermione," he says.

She tilts her head. The line of her jaw is set.

He watches her for a moment, then reaches out. Touches her wrist.

"I'll wait with you," he tells her.

And finally, finally, she turns to look at him.

He smiles.


End file.
